Republicans should be saving our country from Trump, rather than competing to see who can be the most pointless rich white male in America

Congressional Republicans are a unique group. They’re a bunch of old white men who defy science by walking without a backbone, so why should they believe in other things scientists claim are true like climate change?

They also have a much more enviable power: to challenge this President and rein in his worst impulses. But instead, they keep enabling him.

Just this week, the Trump administration announced that they would not cooperate with the House’s impeachment inquiry, blocked a witness from testifying before Congress and threatened to destroy the economy of Turkey, a NATO ally, after pulling US troops out of Syria. “As I have stated strongly before,” our president tweeted, “and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be of limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the economy of Turkey (I’ve done it before!)”

Great and unmatched wisdom? Most of us know by now that the only wisdom Trump has can be found in his wisdom teeth. Given that he brags about everything else, I suppose it was only a matter of time before he started bragging about his teeth. The original version of this tweet probably read “Many people have said that I have the most beautiful, tremendous, great and unmatched wisdom teeth. I know a lot about teeth — I have over 30 of them”.

As a Brit, I’m really glad there’s a country that’s more embarrassing than Britain right now. As an American, I’m horrified that that country is America.

Of course, standing up to a badly behaved president is something that Congressional Republicans and conservative media are absolutely capable of. Remember when Lou Dobbs tweeted: “Obama in a tan suit? What message is the President trying to send? [Watch] Fox News’ Ed Rollins on Obama’s image issues” back when those were the kinds of scandals we cared about? Yeah, me too.

Now, I can’t say Dobbs picked on Obama because he’s a minority, because as an orange guy, Trump is a minority too. But he’s hardly consistent.

Defying Congress as Trump has in the last couple of weeks could trigger a Constitutional crisis — because the Constitution gives the House the power to impeach whether Trump likes it or not, and compliance is not optional. But Republicans have consistently shown that they’re willing to overlook anything this President does, no matter how egregious. At this point, Trump could wipe his ass with the Constitution and Republicans would praise him for applying the Constitution in a way that no other President has.

If Trump can govern via executive orders and ignore the elected officials of Congress, America is less democracy and more autocracy. It’s no secret that Trump would prefer not to have to deal with Congress — but it defies logic for Congressional Republicans to support the President’s efforts to ignore Congress because such capitulation is effectively arguing to put themselves out of a job (which is what happens any time Joe Biden is on a debate stage).

Nixon abused the power of his office, and was held accountable because he lost the support of Congressmen in his own party. Instead, the most contemporary Republicans can do is offer nominal “concern” (hello, Mitt Romney) before falling back into line or claiming that more “facts” need to come out before they can commit to holding their president to account.

The facts are already out, Mitt! The transcript released by Trump himself shows that he engaged in a quid pro quo! And in case that wasn’t clear enough, a few days later, in front of the press on live TV, Trump asked Ukraine and China to investigate Biden (incidentally, I’ve heard tell that China rejected Trump’s request to investigate Trump’s election opponent. Not because they don’t have dirt, but because Xi doesn’t understand what an election is.)

Congressional Republicans have the legal and political tools to hold this President accountable. But if they continue to ignore Trump’s defiance of the Constitution and march towards autocracy, they will collectively become the Jimmy Fallon of politics: rich, white, male and pointless.